Tenaya Darlington

Tenaya Darlington (born 1971) is an American poet as well as Associate Professor at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Her general fields of professional interest include fiction, creative nonfiction, journalism and writing on spirituality. As for her teaching style, she loves igniting students, no matter what, even if it includes dancing on tables. She likes to allocate class time for writing exercises, readings, speakers and the occasional renga party.^[1]

Life

She graduated from Beloit College,^[2] and Indiana University, with an M.F.A., in 1997.

She worked as an x-ray librarian, a knife seller, a food critic, and writer for Isthmus Newspaper,^[3] the alternative weekly in Madison, Wisconsin, where she writes a biweekly culture column about the bizarre, called “On the Loose.”.

She was a visiting writer at DePauw University.^[4] She teaches at St. Joseph's University.^[5]

Her work appeared in Bomb,^[6] Image Journal,^[7] Hayden's Ferry Review^[8]

Awards

• 1999 National Poetry Series, for Madame Deluxe
• Great Lakes Colleges Association New Writer’s Award.^[9]

Blog

In 2010 Tenaya began a dairy diary on Blogger to go along with a class she was teaching. Tenaya is now an avid cheese blogger also known as Madame Fromage.^[10] "Madame Fromage has just one goal, you see? To help you fall hopelessy in love with cheese. Just as she has." ^[11]

Works

Poetry

• Madame Deluxe. Coffee House. 2000. ISBN 978-1-56689-105-9. 
• Little deaths. Indiana University. 1997. 

Articles

• Bee a Good Neighbor: Urban Apiaries' Honey Could Hardly be More Local, Buzzing in from City Rooftops and Bottled by Zip Code. The Philadelphia Inquirer. 2011. 
• Food Desert: North Philly Still Lacks Fresh Food Access. Grid Magazine. 2009. 
• Daily Dish: Farm to Philly Hosts Bloggers Who Eat Locally, Seasonally. Grid Magazine. 2009. 
• Whole Hog. Ecotone. 2007. 

Novel

• Di Bruno Bros. House of Cheese, A Guide to Wedges, Recipes, and Pairings. Running Press. 2013. ISBN 978-0-7624-4604-9. 
• Maybe Baby. Back Bay Books (Little, Brown & Co.). 2004. ISBN 978-0-316-00075-8. 

Anthologies

• Raphael Kadushin, ed. (2005). "A Patch of Skin". Barnstorm: contemporary Wisconsin fiction. Terrace Books. ISBN 978-0-299-20854-7. 
• Brett Fletcher Lauer, Aimee Kelley, eds. (2004). Isn't it romantic: 100 love poems by younger American poets. Verse Press. ISBN 978-0-9746353-1-6.  CS1 maint: Uses editors parameter (link)

Reviews

Some poets aren't satisfied with plain clothes or plain language, they turn their metaphors into absurdist imaging or trace an elliptical line of thought. But, sometimes, they simply paint their face perfectly seductive and then smear it, walk out in public with mad sexhair not just for show but for a sense of bawdy, over-the-top control of the world remembered/encountered. Tenaya Darlington is one such poet and her debut, Madame Deluxe, is full of such brash and brazen flaunt.^[12]

References

External links

• "Tenaya Darlington Interviewed by Erin Bittman", Mary Interviews